2014 Volume 33, Issue 1 15
Contents
Editorial
Currents
Teaching & learning
Research
Curriculum support
Share this
Resource reviews
and practise in Second life and related
virtual worlds. A good starting point to
find them is to read the blogs of other
educators or to visit the Second Life Wiki
Education Resources section.
Skoolaborate
After my first experimentations in
Second life in its early days, I continued
looking for other applications of Second
life for students and came across the
Skoolaborate project (now completed)
which ran on the child-friendly Teen
Second Life Grid.
This project saw a number of schools
collaboratively learning in expected and
unexpected ways. Students with low self-
esteem suddenly found that they had
great skill in the virtual world and found
new friendships and confidence as they
taught others what they knew. Happily,
Inspired by the virtual
Since 2007 I have been interested in
using virtual worlds to make curriculum
connections and engage students
creatively. My research has taken me to a
diverse number of virtual worlds. I hope
this article inspires you to make your
own investigations into the wonderful
possibility of virtual worlds and related
areas such as games based learning.
Let the journey begin
Last year at MacICT at an informal
gathering of educators interested in
virtual worlds in education, I shared my
experiences of experimentation and
exploration in various virtual worlds. I
demonstrated how they might plot their
personal journey into this fascinating
area of education.
My explorations started by viewing and
participating in various locations within
Second life, such as Teachers Network
Centre at ISTE Island and a similar one at
NMC (New Media Consortium), as well as
a number of other educational spaces.
These places are made available for
teachers to play and gain confidence in
developing virtual world skills. However,
many that I used no longer exist — such
is the nature of this rapidly changing
medium.
Currently, there are many new spaces in
which educators can socialise, explore
Adventures
virtual world
in the
Melanie’s customised Minecraft avatar
Teen Second life ~ Skoolborate by educationtutorials
Melanie Hughes is an Education Consultant (Technology across the Curriculum)
with the Association of Independent Schools (AIS) NSW. In this role she conducts
Professional Learning workshops, in-school consultancies and co-ordinates the AIS
NSW yearly ICT Integration Conference.